Guillotine
by Elephants On Parade
Summary: Jonathan Crane is sentenced to death via beheading.


**disclaimer: **I do not own anything Batman or Jonathan Crane related.

**a/n: **In French I class we were watching a video about the French Revolution and how they used guillotines to execute people. Sorry, but while I should be working on A Bird in a Dream (WHICH I AM WORKING ON CHAPTER TWO- I just met a mental block because of this idea), this got stuck in my head. Then I had to write it. And I wrote it much quicker than anything I'll ever be able to write for ABD. I suppose I'm just better at macabre/horror things. o-o

And excuse any mistakes in the French language. I just started learning it so I had to use a translator, and I'm not sure if it was a decent one. D|

Enjoy.

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"And there are no tears,  
Just pity and fear,  
And a vast ravine,  
Right in between," - Pity and Fear, _Death Cab for Cutie._

He pressed his head against the rough, but chilling concrete stones. Voices rattled about, moans and cries, from those who understood their fate now that they were here. Bright eyes searching the darkness, reflecting what little light shone through the tiny barred window near the ceiling. Letting a great, shuddering sigh rack through his body, the man muttered things. He had once been great, once been renowned as a skilled philosopher. But what, with this damned Revolution, could he do? Jonathan was at the same risk as anyone was now a days. And, he had finally been condemned. Blamed for a string of killings he hadn't even known about.

At least they would allow him to retain some of his dignity, and wear fresh, crisp clothes for this day. He had even been allowed to bathe, and have decent, filling food. They treated the innocent, but condemned far better than the ones that were actually guilty of something when their day came. Raw emotion forcing him to shudder in deep quakes that came from deep within his body, welling up, and the spewing forth. He was a commoner, yes, so it was expected that he would not show any sense of nobility, or poise.

Jonathan knew how this worked. He had seen his fare share of executions. First they came to you in your cell, and bound your arms. If you were of nobility, they would cut off your hair. If you were not, they would leave it, make it more painful in the beheading. Yes, you heard him. He was to be beheaded, using the guillotine. A quick chop, and you are gone. The crowd goes wild, cheering, leering, and laughing. The stage had been set, the actors gathered, and well, they would find the replacement for the next act. While he had always remained far away from the stage, Jonathan had also found that sick delight others held at a beheading to spread like a disease.

It swept over you, the hush and bush, the cheer and jeer, rattled your cage and set you free. In a rush of blood lust and frantic desire, it was easy to fall to the enchantment that was considered entertainment. While speculation remained over what happened after the head was cut off, it did not prevent people from attending. Who gave a damn if the person felt the pain? It wasn't you up there, getting your noggin lobbed off. You were safe, protected from the blade. A silent observer, witnessing the passing of a faux-justice. Imbeciles.

"_Ce qui dupe!_" he spat at the floor, glaring at it as if the slate were the cause of Jonathan's woes, "To think this is what has come out of such an endearing cause, of liberation and self-righteousness. Are we all barbarians now? Driven by fear, a madman's rule, and the idea that everyone but our own self is a deceitful cur?"

There was no one around to hear his words, so it was only natural to hear a reply. A reply, a reply in a voice he could not recognize, in a broken French-English mix much like his own. Low, and inhuman sounding, the words were spoken like a tune, a lullaby, a nursery rhyme, "_Ne rongez pas,_ it shall end soon. So do not morn, what is soon done like the moon."

Sharp blue eyes searching the darkness, but not detecting any shape nor form he did not recognize. A voice in his head? Had he gone mad, mad finally? Licking his lips, Jonathan piqued, "Who are you? _Un monstre? _A figment of my imagination? A cry of insanity in the face of death?"

"I am no _monstre_. But I am surprised you can not see me," there was a pause and what sounded like laughter, "You could before."

Brow scrunched in confusion, Jonathan made to question what that meant but he was cut off by the voice saying- "Too bad. Too bad. Your escort is coming. It seems I was late. _Troup tard._"

"_Docteur_ Crane?" They still called him by respect, as if he were a source of fear or glory. It was a way, he assumed, for those who used to study under him to show that they would miss him. He found it insulting. It was his own fault he had not found a way to escape the troupe of angered citizens that had come to his doorstep. His normally acute flight instincts had not kicked in, even though the overwhelming feel of panic had washed over him. "Are you ready?"

He merely nodded, allowing his wrists to be bound- loosely?- with rope, and led out of his cell past the others containing all manner of miscreants and murderers.

_Le Joker_, the Joker was one of the more well-known criminals that meandered a permanent cell in the prison. They had never been able to get around to the Joker's beheading because the blond haired man always seemed to be able to escape. Right now, the scarred, ever-smiling man was leaning out of his cell through the bars. Staring at Jonathan with dark green eyes that almost made the ex-doctor shiver. But he held himself.

"Ah," the clown spoke, voice raspy, "Jonny's being set to the gallows, eh? Such a shame, such a shame we lose another fine addition to our nuthouse, right Harley?"

A woman's voice from several cells in the opposite direction rang out, "Too true, Mistah J! Too true!"

On the outside he was holding a prideful, unattached look, but on the inside he was quaking. That's right. He would never see the memorable occupants of _Arkham's Holding for the Condemned_(Better yet known as Arkham Asylum, for they were all mad in this place. Or you ended up falling to madness by the time your day had come). In the courtyard a peasant's wagon awaited, to take he and his executioner to the gallows where he would finally lose the head he prided himself for.

The silence was odd, deafenning to the ears, while only the clatter of the horse's hooves and breath to break it. For several moments it pertained, a calm before the inevitable storm. Playing with him, toying with him. Making his stomach twist in apprehension, his eyes widen in the slightest. Sweat to form on his brow, make Jonathan lick his lips in a nervous fashion. Then it struck, but it hurt a lot less than the Joker's comment.

Jeering, taunting voices finding many ways to insult him, and his profession. The individual voices began to blur into one big voice, asking him where he went wrong, how could he have let himself be captured? Jonathan dug his nails into the wood seating, preventing the quakes and shivers to show. He would not appear to be weak. He did not fear them, nor did he fear death as they did. It had been accepted long ago that he would perish. Not in this fashion, but he would. Soon the buzz became a din, and then a roar. Sceaming of bloodlust and lust in general.

Jonathan was the replacement. The actor that stepped forth and placed himself on the table. Put his head through the hole, and down comes the blade onto the neck. And then they must go and find the next actor.

He walked up the stairs as if this were his stage, and he was the director of the play. Eyes sharp and chilled, head not bowed as they often were. He was not resigned to his fate, and Jonathan's act stirred something in the people. Why was he not breaking down? The commoners always broke down at the stage. Broke down in tears and spoke in twisted, weeping tones and moaned as they faced death. It was the nobles who acted distant, chilled at such things. It was them.

And Jonathan was not among them. He had no royal blod in him. Only commoner. So how did he not break down? Why did he not? The crowd's roar fell to whispers as they allowed the ex-doctor to approach the edge of the stage to speak his last words. Strange how he was allowed a last saying, and not the old dukes and duchesses. While he did nothing more than glare out at them with his bright, living blue eyes with a stoic face as tears ran down. They continued to fall even as he was placed onto the table, and head slid into to place. The wooden blocks fitted around his neck.

The crowd was silent, knowing what he was accusing them of. Falling for the trick in his blue eyes.

A cough, and then the rope was released as signalled. The blade fell.

"As I said," the mysterious voice came again, now accompanied by a figure. Dressed in loose clothes, a mask, and a tall hat- the figure looked like a scarecrow, "This isn't how it ends."

The executioner's assistant came forth to show the once more cheering crowd the head of Jonathan Crane, and found something most peculiar. He could not pull the head from the body. Even though blood ran from the neck, dribbled down in bright red onto the wood beneath, the head was not severed. The ex-condemned was no longer alive, and yet his head had not come off? Frustrated, they pulled the blade up, allowing it to settle in its upright position, blood rolling down from it.

A gasp escaped the corpse's lips, strangled, tortured, and then his hands broke free of the rope. It had been tied loosely, it seemed, in anticipation of this event. Blue eyes snapping open with madness glittering within, he forcefull pushed up the wooden block and rolled away from the table, striking the ground with a thud. A band around his neck was red and bleeding where the blade would have severed his head at. But it was still attatched to his body, which was moving down the stage into the crowd.

The people parted, gasping wide-eyed as the supposed-to-be-dead man stumbled amongst them. Shreiks filled the air from women, and the stench of vomit filled the air. The crowd was disturbed, parting before the walking dead-man. Jonathan could not see their shocked faces, it was all a blurr. A rush. A jumble. All he could think about was fleeing. Fleeing from the death, his death, his body. He thought he was a spirit running from his bones, until he realized the burn in his legs was real. That he wasn't amongst the dead.

All while he ran, a voice rang out over the haze and roar of the distant crowd.

"Welcome," it pleasantly rang, "To your Fall."

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**a/n: **Any feedback appreciated~


End file.
